Hair Spray

Early hair sprays were developed in Europe in the 1920s. In the US, hair sprays were developed around the time of the aerosol can in the 1940s, and the first patents describing copolymers for hair styling were published in the 1940s. In the US, the first to package it was Chase products (an aerosol manufacturer) in 1948, as the beauty industry saw that the aerosol cans used in World War II for insecticides could be used as a dispenser for hairspray. It thrived and became increasingly popular and mass-produced, as updos and other such hairstyles were created. By 1964, it became the highest selling beauty product on the market. In 1968 at the feminist Miss America protest, protestors symbolically threw a number of feminine products into a "Freedom Trash Can." These included hairspray, which was among items the protestors called "instruments of female torture" and accouterments of what they perceived to be enforced femininity. Sales of hairspray declined in the 1970s as hairstyles became predominately worn straight and loose. By the 1980s, hairspray’s popularity came back as big hairstyles resurged with the glam metal scene.